


Favors

by bladeCleaner



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Could Be Interpreted As Queerplatonic, F/M, Female warrior inquisitor - Freeform, Gen, Gray-aromantic, Grayromantic Relationship, Greyromantic Relationship, LGBTQ Character of Color, References to Abuse, Romantic Orientation Ambiguity
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-21
Updated: 2016-05-08
Packaged: 2018-04-16 13:12:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4626510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bladeCleaner/pseuds/bladeCleaner
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Inquisitor and Cole share gifts, secrets and more.</p><p>For those who'd wished for a closer relationship with Cole in the game without oversexualization (Demands of the Qun, anyone?) and/or erasure. Grey-aromantic/greyromantic/grayromantic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Haircuts and Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> TBA

She’s thankful they always keep veilfire around in pockets of Skyhold, come night time. Her fingers reach out to touch the stone walls around her as she moves quietly through the main hall – Gatsi's making headway on those strange glyphs, she sees. The tables leading up to her throne are empty – dishes cleared, candles unlit. There's only the eerie green glow illuminating her path and the moonlight coming in from the upper windows. Before descending into the basement, she takes the torch loosely held in her hand and lights it with veilfire. She pads through the dark guts of her fortress, ears straining – she's not the only one who sneaks around late at night, she knows – but she hears nothing. As she goes into the kitchen, she breathes a sigh of relief. No kitchen staff working overtime tonight. It's just her. She immediately goes to the pantry. She's put her torch into an empty sconce when she's finished and is midway through a bite when-

“You come here a lot.” A quiet voice says behind her, and she starts and nearly drops the sandwich she’s eating and has a knife in her hand before she turns around. She keeps it in her sleeve - a gift from Leliana.

“Cole! _Maker_ , you nearly gave me a heart attack.” She says, spotting the young man perched upon a barrel. She hides the knife back into her sleeve. She’d given Cole his own daggers, after all, and if he wanted he could have killed her, knife or no knife.

“I wouldn’t do that! Not to you. Never to you.” He bursts out, and she stares at him until she remembers.

_He was the Ghost of the White Spire._

_What I did was wrong._

“I know you wouldn’t, Cole.” She says quietly, though her heart still seems to command her ears quite loudly. His eyes dip back under his hat.

She then remembers what she’s holding and begins to slip into feeling embarrassed. Internally, she fumbles and he speaks –

“Butter and sugar sandwiches. Father used to make them for me when I was sick even though Mother said I’d get fat and lazy. They taste like home and warmth, love and acceptance. The daylight judges me. Here, no one can see. This is my secret. I am a secret.”

She smiles shakily – she’s used to Cole revealing things about everyone else; personal, private things. She was good enough at hiding herself away that usually he couldn’t do that to her and the Anchor helped blind him – but here, late at night, all her guards down, he gets under her skin with a scrunched up face and some effort. She wonders if it’s harder now, too, since he’s more human.

But, as she draws a breath, she finds she doesn’t mind very much. Cole – Cole understands, and _this_ , more than anything. He is the mysterious boy, after all, a secret onto himself.

“You hide yourself away from them, a piece of yourself no one else can claim. It makes it easier to bear, the weight of the world on your shoulders. You can be invisible.” He tilts his head almost as if to ask _why?_ But he’s already answered that question. “Sometimes, you want to be me and make people forget about you.”

She sighs and passes to the door, sandwich in hand, grabbing her veilfire and indicating he should follow her. He can’t really disappear and reappear anymore – she wonders, briefly, if he’d been waiting for her in the shadows. She shakes the thought and listens to the _tmp-tmp_ of his feet as he follows her outside, into the courtyard, where the moonlight hits the grass. The air hits her, freshness filling her lungs and she grins without reserve. But only for a moment. Then she extinguishes the veilfire and sits down on the grass, Cole hesitantly joining her after a beat.

She sighs. “I _am_ sorry, Cole. I…know it is difficult, being you. But sometimes, yes, the weight is hard to bear. I do envy you, at times.”

“I want to make a difference. I don’t want to make a difference at all. I want to hide away and stop thinking about my decisions affecting the entire world. It never used to be like this, one word from me and a country collapses – I’m afraid. No one knows, but I’m so unbelievably afraid.” He rambles, closing his eyes and listening. He opens them again and looks sad.

“That’s a hurt I can’t heal. I’m sorry.” He says.

She shakes her head and eats her sandwich, savouring the unhealthy sweetness. The breeze is gentle tonight, though they're still on a mountain - she suppresses a shiver. “It’s alright.”

“Are you mad? Because I know. You didn’t want anyone to know. I know. Unless you think I’m nobody. Then nobody knows. It’s alright.” He says, switching from panic to relief in a heartbeat. He's rocking back and forth, his feet pressed together and his hands holding his ankles.

She shakes her head violently.

“You are somebody to me. But it's okay - I’m glad you know.”

“But what about being a secret?”

She smiles. “You know. You don’t judge me. That’s better than being a secret.”

He smiles, curious, as if he doesn’t know why she's smiling. But he sounds happy when he says, “You trust me.”

She nods. “Well, that and the fact that you can’t read my mind as much as you can with everyone else's helps.” She says jokingly, but his face twists into a complex expression.

“Yes. That. I don’t understand. It was easier that time. But the rest of the time, you’re too bright and green, like a garden on fire. I try a lot. But then people are trying to kill us most of the time.”

She laughs. “Yes, that makes it hard. But we’re not fighting now and I’m…tired. Maybe it’s because I haven’t sealed a Rift in a while?”

His expression remains blank and seemingly vacuous, though she knows him better. “Oh.”

“Oh?”

“I wish I could help you more. You need it the most.” He says.

“You help by being here.”

He touches his hat, a nervous gesture, and looks down. “Thank you.”

All in all, a good night. 

\--

“No, Cole, don’t leave-”

They’re standing at the gates of Skyhold. She’s watching Cole, always so still, his fists clenched in anger and a fury on his face she hasn’t seen since the ex-Templar on the river bank. All she can do is stretch out her hand and he snarls, “You won’t _miss_ me!”

He holds up a hand, closes his eyes, says, “Forget,” and she shouts –

She wakes up writhing in her bed, the word “no” dying on her lips as a silent cry. Her hand immediately falls to her sword by her bedpost. The disorientation has her temples pounding and her eyes adjust to the darkness.

After venturing into the Fade, when she dreams, they’re mostly nightmares. She thinks it’s the vestiges of the demon, still angry, still waiting.

She thinks of Stroud and she wants to curl up and have someone hit her, very hard, on the head, with a stick.

She thinks of the way Cole had looked, in the dream, his snarl coming up forefront in her mind unbidden -

She throws the sheets off her and begins to walk, careful not to wake up the whole castle. _Another night, another foray through the dark,_ she thinks.

\--

She finds Cole curled up in the stables, after searching all over the tavern’s top floor.

(She doesn't think very hard about the fact that she'd found all the Chargers slumped all over the tavern. She does, however, note that Sutherland and his adventuring company were basically scattered in similar positions, on all three levels of the tavern. They'd all snored like sleeping dragons, and she'd resisted the urge to laugh. _My two companies trying to outdrink each other. Figures._ )

She looks at him. The lost, forgotten boy wearing the hat – he wears it even to sleep, it seems. _He sleeps in the straw?_ She thinks with a frown. _Wait, he_ sleeps _?_

She wonders if he eats, nowadays, too. She should ask. But as she approaches close enough to see under his hat, his eyes are wide open.

“It’s good to see you.” He says. She stops, a couple feet between them; a deliberate distance. She can’t look him in the eyes, which is easy, because of the hat.

She nods non-committedly until he sits up a little and says, “What’s wrong?”

“I…can you promise me something, Cole?”

“I’ll help however I can.” He says.

She takes a deep breath. “Can you promise me, that no matter how bad things get, or…how much you may want to, you never, ever make me forget about you?”

He looks at her, oddly. “I can’t do that, now. I’m more me and less me. I’ve tried.”

“Yes, I know. I just…if you _can_ ever do that again, I want you to promise, okay?”

“Okay. I promise.”

She exhales. “Thank you.”

“But why?”

“I…”

“Is this one of those things where I shouldn’t ask questions? Like with Dorian? Varric says sometimes things aren’t okay to ask, even if people say they are.”

“I don’t want to forget you,” she says, and it sounds so utterly sappy she wants to turn on her heel and abscond. But she doesn’t – she just watches as Cole processes this, and he smiles, the slightest sliver of his thin mouth.

“You mean that,” he says, with conviction, and she smiles giddily back, an automatic response.

She asks, tentatively, “Cole? May I hug you?”

His Adam’s apple bobs a bit and he looks nervous, but he nods yes, his demeanor like that of a frightened deer. She gingerly approaches him and embraces him gently. He stands absolutely still as if he doesn’t know what to do. After some confusion, he puts his hands on her back and she smiles into his shoulder.

She goes back after that and rests, if a little embarrassed. She does not dream.

(She does, however, make a note to try and find Cole a bed.)

\--

_A few days later_

“I don’t need a haircut.” She says, ambling down the steps as if she’s a child. She remembers having this exact conversation with her mother, a couple years ago – but Vivienne is not her mother.

“My darling, the world’s eyes are all on you and your visage now. That includes all of Val Royeux, and if you think I am letting the Orlesian nobles style their hair as bedraggled as yours as mimicry – ”

“My split ends aren’t that bad!” She says half-heartedly, even though they probably are. Instinctively, she fingers the ends of her brightly colored hair. It's pale lilac, but bright enough that she looks like a purple flame in a crowd. She’d had a mage do it and her Chantry-obsessed parents had had a fit. It had been right before the Conclave – and Aunt Monardy had declared her unfit to be a representative of anything. But no one else was available and she’d been sent...

_"Remember our deal."_

She shakes the memory from her system and focuses on Vivienne. She always gives in to Madame De Fer – whether it is from sheer respect or fondness she is uncertain. She sighs and nods, begrudgingly, and Vivienne smiles, as beautiful as ever.

“Excellent, dear. I’ll talk to my hairdresser for you. He does a most _excellent_ shave, though perhaps we’ll simply take it to jawline-length tresses…”

She rolls her eyes, though inwardly she does enjoy visiting Val Royeux. While she was declared a “natural” at the Game, it is not the manipulation she enjoys – but rather, the gilded opulence, thought dedicated purely to aesthetic. Orlais’ elite and its environment seems like a dream, far removed from anything she does – from Skyhold, from the Conclave, from the Black City that looms in her dreams.

It is an escape.

\--

“I should have just let Bull snip it all off with a pair of scissors,” Evelyn says, walking behind Vivienne with her lilac hair freshly trimmed. Her hair a bob still – new wisps falling around her face in stylistic fashion, a detail the hairdresser had insisted upon. The haircut was fine – though the fact that he used a golden comb was disconcerting – but she enjoys winding Vivienne up, or at least attempting to. Vivienne really is an excellent player of the Game, and she has a cutting response for every occasion.

“Our dear Bull wouldn’t defy me, darling.”

“I know. You’ve cowed him immeasurably. I could probably stop paying him if you said he should work for free.” She says, laughing.

“Just say the word, my dear, and I’ll have him do so at once,” Vivienne replies, smile gracing her features, cunning as it is breathtaking.

 _Oh, Vivienne._ She adores her so, even if she sometimes scares her quite shitless.

Just then, she spots a shop for hats. Hats of all kinds – feathered ones, ones with lace, ones with birds on them, delicate, intricate ones with golden foil…

_“Did you enjoy the Winter Palace, Cole?”_

_“There were so many amazing hats!”_

She’d grinned then, at his wonder and joy, and she makes a beeline for the shop while waving Vivienne over.

Vivienne, all too happy to shop, follows suit. They spend ages trading comments about this hat or other – and Evelyn buys a couple, in the end, while Vivienne demurs in favor of thinking over any purchases.

“My darling, are those your selections? Surely, we could find ones of better caliber,” Vivienne remarks, seeing inside her bags.

“Oh no, they aren’t for me,” Evelyn says, a little flustered.

“Say no more, my dear.” Vivienne gives her a mysterious smile as they return to Skyhold together.

\--

She goes out to find Cole the next day in his little alcove, but finds him absent. She wonders what kind of mysteries he’s planting all over the castle now.

She leaves a note for him and checks the time – then dashes to the War Room.

\--

When she finally goes back to her quarters that night, it is nearly sunrise. There had been a million things to do that night – fervent planning, sitting in judgment, and she’d spent an unaccounted for number of hours in the Undercroft chatting with Dagna and crafting weapons and armor. Their armies will march - though not soon - and she likes making daggers and fitting arms and legs upon armor in preparation. She thinks Harritt wishes she would just leave them be, but Dagna _loves_ having her around. Sometimes Evelyn can even keep up with her boundless enthusiasm.

Eventually, though, even Dagna had run out of steam and they’d both finally checked the hour - it being an absurd time to be awake.

She slumps against the door and lets out a huge, exhausted sigh.

Then she immediately goes for her sword, for she sees a shadowy figure on the balcony, until her mind clears and she sees the familiar hat.

She wanders over to him, heart for some reason beating loudly (she attributes to the surprise) and he turns around, looking…anxious.

“Cole? How long have you been up here?”

“Not very long. I talked to your curtains. They’re very soft. Varric says I should stop talking to things that won’t talk back, but it’s nice. I – ” he hesitates. “I read your note.”

“I was going to come see you,” she says. “You didn’t have to come here.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, sounding even more nervous. “That was wrong, wasn’t it? Please – don’t send me away. Here I can help.”

“Cole, I am not sending you away,” she says, wanting to touch him but not daring to come any closer.

“In your note you say you have to talk, and whenever people say that they mean they want something to be done, or gone, or – ” Cole says, looking distressed.

“Cole, I will never send you away unless…things get really bad,” She says, disoriented.

“And you have to kill me,” he offers, helpfully, he probably presumes.

She swallows the deepstalker in her throat. “Yes.”

“Okay.” He says, visibly relaxing. “What did you want to talk about?”

She smiles, though the wave of exhaustion is hitting her. She turns around and goes back inside the room, and he follows after her.

“I have some things for you,” she says, and she takes out the hats from the bags next to her bed. Three hats – one with a beautifully made male peacock as the adornment, the hat itself pale green. The second all yellow and adorned with golden sequins in a wave-like pattern, with fabric fish leaping out of the waves. The last, the simplest of them all – white, no accoutrements, a rounded top with a wide brim. She’d had the hatter sew his name on in the inside.

He gingerly comes over and picks them up, his ice-blue eyes the widest she’s ever seen them, brightening as he looks them over.

“These are wonderful!” He exclaims, looking up, his face lit up like a lantern. She smiles. Worth all that coin(her own, not the Inquisition’s).

“I…I can’t wear them, though.” He says, protectively patting the hat on his head.

“I don’t expect you to,” she says, cutting off whatever he’s about to say. “They’re…things. Just for you. To own. You don’t have to wear them. I know how much you liked the hats at Halamshiral and I thought you’d like to have some. I like your hat. You should keep wearing it.” She rambles, the exhaustion loosening her tongue more than usual.

“ _Thank you_ ,” he says, in the way only Cole can, the way he says everything in that he truly, purely means it. She fingers a wisp of her hair, and looks down at the ground when she nods.

"You're welcome."


	2. cookies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh hey, if you haven't ever watched Sera's rooftop-and-cookies scene, you should go do that now.  
> Also in this universe Evelyn made Briala the ambassador and Gaspard her puppet, mostly because Gaspard is a racist fuck (see books) and so is Celene (HELLO GENOCIDE, ITS NICE TO MAKE YOUR ACQUAINTANCE???)  
> Also, yes, my Inquisitor is PoC, just to let you know now. Kind of tired of seeing white Inquisitors EVERYWHERE.

She finds herself back in Orlais, having visited a diplomat who'd been at Halamshiral. She's walking back from the Upper Market to check on her soldiers at the Orlesian cafe.

She hears someone address one of her soldiers as rabbit, demanding a drink, and her teeth grates. She waves off Cole, Sera and Solas to go on without her, and she approaches the noble with a grin - a lip's promise of violence.

As much as she enjoys Orlais' prettiness, she _remembers_ with a vicious jolt – and she curses herself for a petty fool to be so easily taken in. Under all that gilded gold teeth and wine like silk is _blood_ and betrayal, and plenty of oppression to spare.

“There a _problem_ , messere?” She asks casually.

The noble – most likely some chevalier – looks her up and down in her marked and scorched armor, her rotund body, her dark brown skin, her scarred and unmasked face and scoffs.

“My _problem_ , as it were, is that the help around here is rubbish. _Elves,_ ” he says disdainfully. The elven scout looks at her, eyes widening, as she realizes who she is. Her mouth drops open. “M-my lady...”

She turns to her. “Are you alright, my friend?”

“Yes, ma'am, this isn't...”

“It's alright. Please, go back to your post. I will handle this.”

The Stupid Asshole behind her makes a mocking sound. The elven scout scurries off, but her post isn't very far away, and now she and some of the patrons are watching. She turns back to him.

Evelyn knows it's social suicide, but _fuck that noise._ She says calmly, “Perhaps not every elf you meet is part of the hired help – and perhaps _you_ would do better to treat the ones who are as people.”

He seems taken aback, and then snorts loudly. “Excuse me? Did I ask you for your _learned_ opinion?” He eyes her up and down again. “You! You have a Free Marcher accent – and you speak like stupid common rabble, with their paltry, ignorant _opinions_. Why don't you run off and go play, you obese slattern?”

She slides Leliana's gift in her hands and the blade is nearly scoring the underside of his chin before he can take a breath after speaking. Suddenly the entire cafe behind her is deathly quiet, the thread of the tension taut. No one moves. She can sense a few people gasping around her, most likely recognizing her from Halamshiral. Or they have delicate dispositions, which is laughable.

“I have come back from the Fade _twice._ Nearly thrice. And let me tell you, my friend,” she says nonchalantly, “you will not be half as lucky as I am.” The blade caresses his cheek as it rises to touch the tip of his nose. If he leaned forward even the slightest bit she would draw crimson.

“This _fat whore_ is Evelyn Trevelyan, _Inquisitor_. If my title does not make me fearsome to you, let me tell you this – I am a woman who, before any of this, bore _no insult without bloodshed._ ”

Then she folds her blade back inside her sleeve. “But you aren't worth it. Let me say one more thing – you are an ignorant, racist piece of nug dung. Elves are the entire reason Val Royeaux can afford to sit in its opulent cage, and one day you will realize just what you have scorned. Should you ever mistreat one again – I will know – and I am a _personal_ friend of Ambassador Briala and Madame de Fer. Neither one would hesitate to cut you down.”

She's still teeming over with rage when she walks over to Cole, Sera and Solas, the two elves looking unsettled. Sera recovers first and claps her on the shoulder. “Let's see them call you a fuckin' shem now,” she says, unsteadily, but loudly.

“Sera,” Evelyn replies, “I understand why elves react like that - ”

“Nah, I ain't talkin' about that, just...some of my people. Forget it. You're a big damn bloody hero, eh? C'mon. Let's go. This place is a pound of shit. I need a drink and you do too.”

“What I need is a LOT of drinks,” Evelyn says, placing a palm to her forehead. “Fuck Orlesian nobles.”

“I always knew you were right smart, glowy girl,” Sera says approvingly. “Let's haul butt and get pissed.”

They walk, and Cole gives her a smile. Solas won't look at her.

Sera and her get drunk as hell, and she doesn't regret a minute of it. She finds herself hungover on Sera's pile of pillows the next morning, and they grab breakfast/lunch/actually very late tea on the roof.

\--

It's the next dawn when Cole sneaks down to the kitchen to steal honey for...reasons.

He finds, instead, Evelyn.

“Hello.”

She doesn't flinch, just waves him over, and he comes.

“Hello, Cole. I...look. Cookies. Help me make cookies.”

He blinks several times. She's in a servant's uniform – sleeves all rolled up, and with an apron on. She looks like a frazzled cook. There's flour all over her hands and she's at the counter trying to roll dough. It looks kind of mushy. The white is stark against her brown arms and she swipes at her face, leaving an ivory trail.

“Cookies?”

“Please, Cole?”

“Why?”

She smiles at him. “Dunno. She hates cookies but she was eatin' them on the roof, throwing out the raisins and – oh, Maker's _arse_. I need to stop adopting everyone's verbal mannerisms. Cassandra already thinks I'm mocking her when I make a Disgusted Noise.”

He stares at her, eyes clear as water in the Emerald Graves. “She's never had a lot of female friends. She doesn't think you're being mean. But – cruel laughter, pulling on her hair, braids circling around her so that she'll never have to be held back again. She doesn't know what teasing is supposed to be like between friends.”

She pauses for a moment. She puts the mixing bowl down, her hands coated in flour. “I didn't know that.”

“She likes you a lot. But she'll never say it to your face.” He says matter-of-factly. She grins.

“Good to know. She's terrible. And great.”

“Yes. I agree. Are you making cookies for her?”

“Not for her, but she can have some if she'd like. I was just chatting with Sera, and...I want to practice making cookies for her.”

“Oh!” He says. He doesn't smile, but it's in his voice. “We're helping Sera!”

“Yeah. Thought I'd ask you. But don't tell her?” she says, looking a little guilty. “I know she can be a bit of a shit when she talks to you, but...er...”

“I want to help.” He states simply. He walks over, and she beams.

“Thank you. Alright. I've sent Sera off on one of our Red Jenny operations for the day, and all the cooks and servants are all sworn to secrecy. One of them gave me a recipe, and I came in here really early to...Cole?”

He's smiling.

“Nothing. You were...telling me.”

“I don't know how to make cookies. But I didn't want to make them help, you know? They only know Sera as That Friggin' Elf. You care about people, even Sera. And – I want the first time Sera and I make cookies to be good – for them to turn out decent. But that takes time.”

“She's sad. She wants, wanted a family but everybody gets taken from her, one way or another. She has her Red Jennies, her little people but she's never had this. She talks to make the pain go away, she laughs, she wants to help just like me. She sees you and Dorian reading together, she sees The Iron Bull and Krem drinking – she sees home and the soldiers drinking ale and laughter. She likes to prank Cullen and Leliana helps sometimes, and it's _good._ She cackles like lightning. She stares at your ass.” Evelyn coughs up a cloud of flour and Cole continues to babble. “She sees Skyhold and she thinks - _You're people. You're my people_ _too_ _._ She's sad but it's not as bad anymore.”

Evelyn takes a deep breath, stilling, as if she's about to say something.

Then she nods, decisively. “Absolutely no raisins,” she insists, and Cole just follows along.

\--

Evelyn has to tell Cole to stop telling the oven not to work too hard, and he stares at her eating the leftover cookie dough as if she's a mad woman. She explains, and offers the spoon. He eyes it with curiosity. He knows taste, and hunger – he shuts his eyes for a moment.

 _You left me to die in the cells,_ he'd whispered to the Lord Seeker 's corpse. _Have you known hunger so complete that you are no more than a void? Have you thought about eating your own fingers to survive?_

“Cole?”

“Yes?” He says, his eyes snapping open. Ever since becoming more human, he's had brief pangs – they disappear and reappear. The sudden hollowness in his stomach bringing back unpleasant memories. But he hasn't eaten anything. Not yet. But here is Evelyn – smiling at him, holding up a spoon of something sweet – and he takes it.

“A little unhealthy before any meal, I concede,” she says, happily. She likes being silly, he finds. She likes being nonsensical and wild, but Inquisitors don't mess around, and in so many ways she enjoys Sera because of her madcap unpredictability. For her freedom. There's something else - something murkier - but he can't grasp at it, it's so hidden away. But she's right here, now, so he stops and leans forward.

He tastes it, and it's good and sweet and smooth, and the expression on his face makes her laugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ps. this received more attention than i thought it would? thank you for your comments, they're honestly a big part of why i keep posting. please keep reviewing!  
> also i'm aware evelyn is coming off a bit mary-sueish, to pre-empt any concerns. ellipses. i will say no more.


	3. it will be okay

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is pre-supposing at the end of Sera's cookie conversation, you picked the option to throw cookies off the roof.  
> (and therefore accidentally hit Cassandra with one. woops!)

Cole hears the snatches of conversation underneath his feet. Right now it's Evelyn and Sera.

...and Cassandra?

“Inquisitor, would you like to explain to me why an edible projectile was launched at my head recently?”

Sera's giggle and the sound of her running away.

“Er...”

\--

Evelyn goes to find Cole and tell him about what happened with Sera. When they made cookies, she and Sera, it had actually gone pretty badly. They'd then bounced the failed batch of cookies off Iron Bull's harness when he was training from the roof. They'd done this until he'd turned around, looked up and roared, which had made Sera swear.

“Boss?” he'd said, his expression becoming ten times less scary. “Are you guys doing shenanigans without me?”

“Run!” Evelyn had shrieked, and they'd fled from the tavern into the garden. She'd run past Mother Giselle, who'd looked horrified. They'd climbed up to the empty tower above the makeshift Chantry and fell about into a fit of giggles.

“Leliana is going to kill me. Josephine too. Maybe Cullen,” Evelyn had said in between her laughter.

“Oh, please. Stuff 'em and put 'em in a cupboard full of baking powder, or whatever. That was mad funny, Heraldess.”

“So. Let's try that again sometime?”

“What, you want to keep doing this? Really?” Sera had said, a little bemused.

“You said you wanted to like cookies again,” Evelyn had said. They'd stopped laughing, and was in that half-breathless stage of trying to breathe like normal people after having nearly died of giggling, so her tone sounded elated still. Sera'd smiled, then stopped, like she didn't know what to do with her face or that knowledge.

“I thought, you know, you were just being nice or whatever. Herald-y. Andraste-y. Being way too good for my britches or something, like a saint. Are you for real? You really want to help me with this stupid shite?”

“Of course,” Evelyn had replied. “You're my friend.” Sera'd looked like she was about to cry, and Evelyn had begun to panic. She'd made girls cry before, and it was absolutely terrifying – then Sera had launched herself at her and hugged her so hard she'd nearly stopped breathing.

“Look- I-” Sera had said, struggling. Then she'd given up and just kept hugging Evelyn. After a few moments, Evelyn had hugged her back.

Cole knows all of this already. Sera's confusion had called out to him – but she'd been happy too, the emotions sliding against each other like ribbons and paper. It had made him happy.

“Cole?”

He looks up at her from his place on the floor. He's trying to thread a needle with some red thread – he wants to help the hurt and the helpless, and he thinks that trying to mend clothes is a good start. Before, he would have replaced the clothes and removed the memory of the previous ones, but he knows better now. He thinks. New clothes would mean stealing from the Inquisition.

“What are you doing?” she asks.

“Trying to put this thread through the hole,” he says, “it's hard.” The silver of the needle sings to him about the places it could be and the hole makes him think of ditches, lakes, a million things that aren't tiny holes. The thread is worse; the thread makes him think of the hands that handed it to him, the girl at the requisitions table with the furrowed brow and the brother on the Storm Coast- he shakes his head.

“Focusing on it is hard,” he says out loud.

She folds neatly into a sitting position across him and holds out her hands. He gives her the thread and needle and the torn, patched-up handkerchief he was practicing on. She licks the thread, which had been fraying by the edges, and threads it through with ease. She ties the knot at the other end and hands it back to Cole.

“Oh,” Cole says. “That was impressive.”

She tries to hide her laugh. “No, Cole, but I appreciate the sentiment.” She smiles; but the moment's broken when Scout Harding calls up from the tavern floor.

“Inquisitor?” she calls. “There's an urgent missive the Commander would like you to read, if you're up there-”

She closes her eyes briefly.

“Of course, Scout Harding,” she calls over the railing. She's just sat down and she feels the pull of wanting to stay when she places her hand on her rising knee. She pushes herself up and Cole looks up at her. For a moment, he thinks – _I could make them both forget, and she could stay-_

The selfish thought is a spill of cold. It doesn't even matter that he can't; he shivers, involuntarily. _Selfishness._ The iciness trailing down his back with fingers stealing sense, the whisper in his ear, the darkness he could wade in waist-deep like rivers where people drown in. He doesn't even hear her when she leaves, only sees her mouth trailing words like smoke and then she's gone.

_\--_

_I regret to inform you that after recent actions, the Grey Wardens have suffered too many losses to be of any further assistance. The last warriors died fighting for the Inquisition in good faith. I have sent their personal effects to Weisshaupt._

Her eyes are blurry. She'd read the note, sat through the meetings, made more decisions that would inevitably get more people killed with a straight face and Josephine had touched her shoulder gently. She'd remained in the War Room for five minutes and shook. Then she'd gone outside to attend to the rest of her duties.

Now she's back in her room. It's just past sunset and she should go and eat. She knows this. She looks at her hand through her wavy vision. Five fingers, a few scars, if she raised the left one it would be more interesting. Her head feels warm. Nothing feels as it should. She tries to calm herself down – indistinctly, she registers this isn't calm – by recounting things. _You are 21. Your name is Evelyn. This is Skyhold._

She can't move. When she came in she'd sat numbly down onto the couch near the staircase without relaxing into it. When she'd first sat on it she'd nearly cried, it was so comfortable. It was horribly ostentatious, nothing practical about it, but it'd been so soft. Now its plush give barely registers. She should get up and do something, anything, as the sky darkens more and the orange slanting its way through stained glass becomes little more than a hint on the horizon. She should change. She should go eat something. She should move. The coolness of the evening smooths itself over her face, murmuring through her curtains as a breeze.

After what seems like an entire Age onto itself, she gets up. The process is gruelling, and she regrets it as she goes. She goes to her drawers. She had very little to move, when they'd come here. Nothing she'd had was personal. She'd written to Ostwick and they had sent her a trunk of her things – she opens up a drawer now and goes for one of them. A shawl, an old friend's – she'd begged it off him and he'd smiled, _sure, I go through 'em all the time-_

She shuts her eyes tight. It's not anything special, but it's thick and warm. It's varying shades of grey and fraying at the ends. She wraps herself up in it, shivering. She stands at the balcony, still cold, the warmth of his memory helping and hurting. She can't see anything past the rail except for endless stars dotting the sky.

She hears the door shut behind her and turns around, goes inside and tries to suppress her shivering. No one should see the Inquisitor this weak.

But then there's the flash of that familiar hat, and she relaxes slightly. If only a little. He looks like a ridiculous sort of serving boy, she thinks, all patched clothes with a ornate silver tray of food, and she smiles at him. But his expression looks melancholy.

“You're sad,” he says mournfully, and he holds the tray tightly until she takes it away and places it on her writing table. She notices alongside the mutton stew and bread there's a plate of cookies, with a note. It's Sera's telltale scrawl, written in brown ink.

_for inky_

For a moment, she's surprised. Then she smooths the paper and puts it in her desk.

She turns, starts to say thank you, when he surprises her. He takes her into his arms. He's _warm_. His skin is soft and she marvels at how solid he feels. She starts to tear up again. He adjusts his arms around her, her head fitting under his chin, and she cries silently. She holds him, tears dripping onto his tunic, and he thinks: _gravestones lining the crown around her head and she collects all of their names tattooed on her arm. she needs the sun._ He says to her, “It will be okay,” and repeats it, again and again. She doesn't know what to say. She feels safe, silly as it sounds to her, wrapped up in his arms.

“It will be okay.” They stand there, and after a while, she almost believes it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gdi guys you're letting the food get cold
> 
> (next few chapters will be longer, i promise!)


	4. past visions, prayers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Evelyn dreams and distances herself from Cole; Cassandra tries to bridge a gap. We depart from the usual format of *giving gifts* etc.

_“This is insane, I won’t let you do this-”_

_“For Andraste’s sake, stop and_ listen! _” He cries. His voice rings out. She stops. “We don’t have any chance surviving together. We have to split up.”_

_“Will, they’ll kill you.”_

_“If we keep at it like this, they’ll definitely catch us. We’re outmatched and outnumbered; do you really want to go back?”_

_Something in her expression twists, and he grins triumphantly. The alley is lit by one lamp and it casts an orange cast on his face, the rest of him a dark blue. Something about his expression just makes her angry._

_“_ Irrelevant. _Do you want to risk your neck for some stupid noble girl? Just – ”_

_He takes her by the arms firmly and looks at her, more serious now. “You are infinitely stupid,” he tells her. “I’m doing this for you. No arguing. Maker, you’re wasting time.”_

_She wants to lash out and slap him, but she knows he’s right; he won’t budge, she can’t make him and they’re running out of time. She sends him a furious look, and then hugs him quickly._

_“Don’t you dare get caught,” she whispers into his black hair._

_“Do I ever?” he replies. “Now, **go!** ” He pushes her forward – the tunnels are further into the city._

_She runs, sword heavy on her back. She’s wearing nothing but the clothes she slept in and the night’s wind licks at her legs, cool counterpoint to the burning of her muscles. She doesn’t look back, but she can see it in her mind’s eye, him drawing the daggers with a glint in his eye. But she can’t think about that, she has to think forward, has to make it –_

She wakes, gasping for air, heaving breaths that are entirely too loud in her ears and seem to echo throughout her immense room.

It is late morning. She can tell by the quality of the light streaming in through the stained glass windows. Instead of early butter gold, it’s harsh bright. Some of the blinds are closed, and on the couch – she sees Cole. His hat is over his eyes until he raises his head, his silver eyes clear and wide.

“I’ll never forgive myself if he was lost because of me. Stuttering, laughing, he tells me a story about the card games they played in his hometown. He is the light in any room.”

Last night hits her like a blur. She was distraught, and Cole was there. The bed creaks as she starts towards him, already mouthing an instinctive apology, but he stops her with his words pouring out.

“You hide it so well,” he says, and she draws back like she’s been slapped. He doesn’t sound like himself, he sounds like – someone else, judging her, even though his tone is anything but. “Underneath, you’re all red.”

“Cole,” she says, disoriented, “Cole.” As if saying his name will ground her the way he did last night, bringing her back to reality. She knows what he’s going to say next. It wasn’t your fault. People die. They chose -

He shakes his head, saying, “No – they chose you because you chose them. There are worse things than dying, they think, charging forward - ”

“Cole,” she says, her throat lined with something thick. “Please stop. Please.”

Mercifully, he does. She feels a stronger kinship with Dorian, now, who’d been on the receiving end of this about his father. Her throat tightens. Parents. That was the one pivot on which – but she had never told him. She never tells anyone, and here she is with a boy – someone – a being who could know everything if not for the emerald scalding sear on her hand and her own grit.

 _You play Maker,_ a voice in her head says. _You play The Game as well as your mother ever wanted, and you play it with him too. You made him what you wanted, and now here is, your wind-up boy, waiting to help you because you are wracked with guilt. So watch him go-_

She reels.

“I – Cole. Would you leave me? I…need some time to be alone.”

He stares at her for a moment. “But you’re hurting. I helped, yesterday – ”

“Thank you but…I don’t need your help right now.”

He draws back, and she knows that expression on his face before he dips his face behind the lip of his hat. Pain. She wishes she could take the words back but it’s too late – she blinks, once, twice and he is gone. He may not be able to disappear anymore – but he’s still a rogue-formed, and she waits until her door creaks before she lowers herself on the adjacent couch.

_Shit._

\--

After the War Table meeting that day, she requests that all her paperwork be sent up to her room. Leliana gives her an incisive glance – she imagines the blade sinking in between her eyes – but says nothing. Cole had once said “The lady of birds – she laughs, his jokes and his tripwire as surprising as the other. She tells him of Orlesian scents and he tells her of Antivan leather. Both bind.”

She works deep into the day until her mind can take no more. She reaches for a cup of tea until she’s reminded that she’s run out – she will have to run down to the kitchen for a refill. She shrinks from the prospect – she does not wish to interact with anyone. Not today, when she’s certain her wounds may burst through to skin at any time. She is all rawness beneath membrane and Cole had seen it clear into her bones.

\--

At sunset, she emerges on the east balcony and strains to hear voices. She stands absolutely still on what seems to be the tip of Thedas itself, waiting for familiarity to encroach. Iron Bull’s roaring laughter, Sera’s chatter, Varric’s silvertongue, Dorian’s languorous words, Solas’ measured tone. The sound of Josephine’s quill across heavy papyrus, or Leliana’s birds. Cole’s poetry. She waits – for rumors or gossip to drift upwards to her window, or a messenger to burst through the door with urgent news of Venatori or corrupted Templars, or political shifts.

They do not come. She stands motionless still on the balcony, waiting, waiting for the axe to swing down. Months upon months of bumping shoulders, sharing everything from rivers to bedrolls to tooth powder – she waits. Blessedly – though she loves her friends so – the sound never comes. All she can hear is the swoosh of rushing wind. Not even birdsong. For one stolen moment – she is alone. Her obligations do not crowd her mind, demanding her attention, a congregation of _wants_ and _needs_ and _dos_.

She folds her legs into a sitting position and she prays.

“ _You have grieved as I have._

_You, who made worlds out of nothing._

_We are alike in sorrow, sculptor and clay,_

_Comforting each other in our art…_

_Maker, though the darkness comes upon me,_

_I shall embrace the Light. I shall weather the storm._

_I shall endure._

_What You have created, no one can tear asunder…_

_Through blinding mist, I climb_

_A sheer cliff, the summit shrouded in fog, the base_

_Endlessly far beneath my feet._

_The Maker is the rock to which I cling._

_I cannot see the path._

_Perhaps there is only abyss._

_Trembling, I step forward,_

_In darkness enveloped…_

_I am not alone. Even_

_As I stumble on the path_

_With my eyes closed, yet I see_

_The Light is here._

_…Rest at the Maker’s right hand,_

_And be forgiven._ ”

 

She hears footsteps approach. Sure and heavy. One who has no patience with concealment.

“I thought you said you did not believe in the Maker.” Cassandra’s heavy accent is not accusing, but hopeful. Evelyn knows she is not the Herald of Andraste but if she could be for anyone, she would for Cassandra.

“I still don’t.”

“Then - ?"

“The Chant is what I grew up with in Ostwick. Even as a non-believer, it is comforting and beautiful. Even if I do not believe in the Maker, if He exists, perhaps He would approve of me finding solace in the words of His children.”

“Yes, perhaps.” Cassandra says slowly. She approaches Evelyn, who is seated with her legs crossed in the middle of the balcony. She looks at Evelyn, who cocks her head at the space next to her. The Seeker sits down next to her. “Inquisitor. I do not mean to pry, but are you alright?”

“Cassandra, you know it’s Evelyn.” She says, almost teasingly, coming out of her strange sobriety. “Nowadays people only call me Inquisitor when they want a favor.”

“And to think that I was the one who suggested it at the start of all this.” Cassandra says dryly. Evelyn nearly smiles. “Also, do not think I do not notice you evading my question. I have spent many years alongside Leliana; you will have to do better than that.”

Flames. “I…will be alright. I merely required some solitude."

“I apologize for intruding – ”

“No, it’s…it’s alright. Too much of it and I might get used to it. We can’t have that.” She replies, self-deprecatingly.

Cassandra looks at her with a pitying expression, which Evelyn loathes, and so she turns her face away. _Coward_.

Evelyn says after a moment, “That came out wrong. I appreciate your company, I am simply not in the mood to converse much. If that’s alright with you.”

Cassandra snorts. “Conversation is not my preferred pastime, Inquis- Evelyn, as you well know. If a certain dwarf were here…”

Evelyn finally quirks the side of her mouth upward, but briefly. Cassandra looks at her friend, her eyebrows furrowed with worry, until Evelyn speaks again to ward her off.

“You’re welcome to stay if you want – though the dinner bell will be going soon.”

“Are you not joining us tonight?”

“And deprive you all of my company?” She says, pulling out a smile from nowhere. Cassandra sees why she and Dorian get along so well, now – the quickness to affectation, the sleight of hand in wit and ego. She wishes she could rip away the curtain and see – her friend, the woman she respects and trusts so much, whom she now thinks she does not know that well at all. “Perish the thought. I’ll be down in but a second.”

Cassandra leaves as the dinner bell begins to ring, clear and bright throughout all of Skyhold. Evelyn watches her go – then continues, as diligently as she can, to pray.

\--

“ _My Creator, judge me whole:_

_Find me well within Your grace._

_Touch me with fire that I be cleansed._

_Tell me I have sung to Your approval._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> right, we're gonna get plottier soon, but don't worry - i'm not about to abandon all these quiet one-to-one emotional moments. this is going to be an issue that's not going to be resolved straight away, but evelyn is as you can see, adaptable. fun things coming up, friends. stick around.
> 
> (also I did not intend for this to get plotty? but wow, we're only 4 in, and yup, I've written at least 5k of surprise plot. gdi.)


End file.
